China-Eurasia Expo highlights targeted poverty relief

The ongoing Sixth China-Eurasia Expo in Urumqi, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, has been highlighting the achievements made in the region's targeted poverty alleviation work.

A special exhibition zone was set up for the first time to show the achievements, including over 120 booths, each featuring a county or village in Xinjiang that was lifted out of poverty courtesy of the region's targeted measures in recent years, and the industry that played a major role in the process.

At the booth of a village in Shanshan County, an information board showed that a special group on targeted poverty relief was sent to the village by the local government, who brought investment from a few companies and introduced advanced agricultural methods to the villagers to increase their income by growing and selling more and higher quality local products.

Visitors could taste and buy products such as raisins, dried mulberries, mulberry wine and tea and others. Traditional ceramics and embroidery products were also on display.

"We want to use the China-Eurasia Expo as a platform to display the achievements in targeted poverty alleviation made by all the regions as a whole, in order to facilitate the work and bring it to a new level," said Chen Huaming, who is in charge of the exhibition zone.

A total of 317,400 people and 331 villages were lifted out of poverty in Xinjiang in 2017, and the poverty headcount ratio dropped from 15.5 percent in 2016 to 12.6 percent last year, said Xinjiang's poverty alleviation and development office.

According to the National Development and Reform Commission, 3.84 billion yuan (about 560 million U.S. dollars) has been earmarked for reducing poverty this year, with 90 percent going to Xinjiang, Tibet, Qinghai, Sichuan, Yunnan, and Gansu.